News from across the London Borough of Lambeth

A new exhibition opened at greengrassi art gallery in
Kennington on Friday night.

Complexity Cost is
Catherine Biocca’s first solo exhibition at greengrassi. The German-Italian
artist was previously part of a group show at the gallery in 2016.

greengrassi has housed a diverse list of artists working in
a variety of media and Biocca’s latest multidisciplinary installation feels at
home here. Complexity Cost is a
colourful and striking synthesis of drawings, sculpture, moving imagery and
audio elements that form an immersive setting in the second floor gallery.

We caught up with Biocca shortly before the official opening of her exhibition. She started by explaining the title, which is a term used in the business world: “Complexity cost refers to the cost that increases when a product or service is spiced up or made more complex, more appealing and more sophisticated.

Catherine Biocca moments before Complexity Cost officially opened

“Starting from this idea I was trying to translate on a social level what happens when a society or social construct gets more complex and what’s the cost of this.” This theme is explored through pieces depicting nails and hammers with a digital centrepiece displacing the relation between the two.

Biocca added: “I tried to screw it back to the really basic image or metaphor of the sense that you get when you hear ‘complexity cost’. Not necessarily placing it in a specific economic or social context, so that was the starting point for the whole installation.”

Credit: Catherine Biocca.

The artist enjoyed working at greengrassi again, she said: “The space here is a classic u-block – I tried to make the space feel longer than it is. The colour changes the perception of the space itself. People will come here who know the space and they will envisage the space as a thing they already know, so for me it’s kind of interesting to change or trigger a different point of view.”

Complexity Cost displays Biocca’s ability to use multiple dimensions and media forms and to make them interact to create an engrossing environment. The idea of everyday occurrences being recast, a theme present in Biocca’s previous work, also shines through at this latest exhibition.

Formerly a resident artist at
Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Biocca currently lives in Berlin. Her next exhibition
starts in April at the Ville delle Rose in Bologna.

greengrassi opened in 1997 in Fitzrovia. It moved to its
current site in Kempsford Road, Kennington in 2004. You can find out more about
the gallery on their website.